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Makoto Yukimura’s Viking manga Vinland Saga landing in October

There was once a time where the idea of a comic in the U.S. market about Vikings seemed like wishful thinking, but then Brian Wood broke the ice with Northlanders at Vertigo. And now Kodanasha Comics is pushing even further October with the North American release of Vinland Saga, the celebrated Viking epic from Planetes creator Makato Yukimura.

Set in the 1000s, the series follows a group of Danish Vikings in England, with Yukimura blending history and fiction for a rollicking adventure.

Debuting in 2005 in Weekly Shōnen Magazine, Vinland Saga has released more than 80 chapters, and has been collected in Japan in nearly a dozen graphic novels.

For years American readers and pundits have been pining for an English translation, with The Comics Journal‘s Dirk Deppey openly endorsing reading scanlations in the absence of an official English-language release.

But come Oct. 8 that will all change with the arrival of the 460-page Book One, which not only collects the first two volumes of Vinland Saga but also marks the first hardcover from Kodansha Comics. The $19.99 U.S. edition, which boasts a larger trim size, also includes a new Q&A with Yukimura, Viking cosplay photos (because, why not?), and the first installment of “For Our Farewell Is Near,” an unreleased Yukimura story that will be serialized throughout the books.